Bedtime Stories
by pagerunner
Summary: Hawke wants to know a little more about Anders' past. The anecdote she gets is... well, emotionally engaging. For a certain value of "emotionally." Rivalmance relationship, set during the later stretches of Dragon Age 2.


"Tell me about one of your escapes," Hawke said sleepily as she and Anders settled in for the night.

He went a little tense, but from surprise more than displeasure; she could tell from the look on his face that she'd startled him. They'd known each other years now, had argued over his causes and crusades more than once, and their eventual accord on that matter was tenuous enough that they'd tacitly agreed, no matter what kind of revolutionary meetings he held in the basement or heated debates they had over the dinner table, not to bring the matters of mages into their bedroom. Yet here she was, asking about one of the most sensitive matters, and she knew it: the Circle experience that had been bad enough for him to try fleeing it entirely.

Still, something about that idea was… almost strangely romantic, although she didn't dare say so to his face. It took guts to attempt such a thing even once, let alone the countless times Anders had tried. She had enough roguish tendencies to admire that, at least.

"I assume you aren't looking for the tales of grave injustice that _led_ to fleeing in the middle of the night," Anders said, guessing where she was going with this. Hawke snorted softly and shifted beneath the blankets. They were lying very close to each other, but not quite touching; through the thin silk of her nightdress she could feel his warmth. Lightly she tapped the center of his bare chest.

"I didn't even know it _was_ the middle of the night when you escaped," she said. "Was it always? Or was it different ways each time?"

"Why the sudden curiosity?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Maybe I'm planning a late-night break-in to the Viscount's Keep to steal the crown, and could use some pointers on how to make a clean getaway…."

He chuckled. "My getaways were rarely _clean,_ I admit. Having someone tail you with your own phylactery does put a damper on things…." He made a wry grimace, then propped himself up on one elbow, watching her. She waited expectantly. "Why," he said softly, "do you really want to know?"

Hawke thought about it, then made a tiny shrug. "I just… want to know more about you, I suppose. Your past. What led you to this." She paused. "What kind of adventures you had, people you met…."

"It wasn't all fun and games and rousing hijinks, you know." He was poised at an odd spot between dourness and wry humor. "Some of those escapes would make lousy bedtime stories. A couple of them were rather inspired, though, I do admit…."

"Tell me about those, then."

He mulled it over. Slowly, a smile crept onto his face. "I do have one that comes to mind."

She wriggled just a little closer. "Mmh? Do tell."

Anders chuckled softly and relented. "Well. Where to begin… I was - well, young." He looked almost rueful, not about what his age had actually been, if Hawke guessed right, but how long it had been since then. She gave him an encouraging nudge. "In any case, I'd decided to give myself a grand escape as something of a birthday present that year. I felt like I deserved one. By then I'd been with Karl for a while…."

He paused there, obviously letting her think about it. He knew she found that aspect of his past rather… intriguing, even if she wasn't about to say so now, in deference to what she knew had happened at the end. So many things they never spoke about….

But he'd picked up the thread again and was murmuring something more.

"He'd left the Circle himself by then, though, off on some errand for our so-called superiors, and I was at loose ends… didn't really know what to do with myself. I was frustrated. Lonely, I suppose. So I got up to _some_ trouble with my fellow mages, I admit…."

"Ah. _Trouble_, he says."

He smirked briefly. "Let's call it… exploration. But it didn't go too far in the end, because it never felt right. Mostly I just wanted to get away."

His hand had begun to trail lightly up and down her arm. Hawke held her tongue, not wanting to disrupt the moment. His voice was rough and a little wistful, but there was something else underneath, too, that she wanted to know more about.

"I'd… had this idea, something I'd kept in the back of my mind for a while. A break-out plan. And a dramatic one, too, if I do say so myself." He grinned. "It involved rather a lot of explosions."

Hawke smiled back at him. "I'm liking the sound of this already."

"There were decoys on the roof," Anders said. "I'd escaped from there before - and _that_ involved some exceedingly complicated spells to get down without killing myself, so I wasn't about to try it again, but I _did_ take a lot of satisfaction out of blowing the lid off the place and making people _think_ I'd go soaring off, believe me." He chuckled, tracing his fingernails over her skin in ticklish, tingling lines. "I was actually escaping through the basement. I'd blasted out an escape tunnel when no one was looking."

"Industrious of you…."

"I've had my moments." He tilted his head back, giving her a lovely view for a moment of the arch of his neck, the bared skin at his throat. She almost reached up and kissed him there, but she waited, not wanting to interrupt the story.

"I got out to the lake, and I had templars firing at me from above," he said. "One hit me with a _wicked_ smite - I think it was Ser Pearce - and I fell short of the boat I'd planned to steal. Then someone else came around the other side to flank me, running as fast as he could in that damned skirt of his." He snorted. "I didn't have much choice at that point, really. Someone would have caught up with me if I'd kept after that boat. So I dived in instead."

"You're telling me you swam across Lake Calenhad?"

"It was the second time I'd tried that," Anders confirmed. "So I knew I _could_. Trouble is, last time it had been summer. This time? Late autumn."

"It must have been freezing," Hawke murmured. She curled one arm around Anders, tugging him closer as if to ward off the remembered chill. He went willingly.

"Oh, it was. I fought to keep myself moving, but I didn't have the mana to warm myself, and so by the time I reached the shore, I was in sad shape. Shivering, dazed, muscles didn't want to cooperate, wet robes dragging me down…."

"How did you get away?"

"I'm still not sure," Anders admitted. "Blind luck, maybe. I know I ran, despite it all. I was the world's most obvious target, but somehow, I ran. And I went off in a direction I hadn't tried before - mostly because you'd have to be an idiot to climb that slope, and I wasn't in any shape to manage it, but like I said, _somehow…._ call it fate or chance or a guardian spirit, who knows. I made it up the hill. I managed to keep ahead of the templars, too, but I knew I needed help. I was flagging, and it was happening fast. The first chance I got at shelter, I took it."

"Where was it?"

"An old house," he said. "Just a small one, up that hill and some distance from the lake. It looked abandoned, totally quiet. I tried to stay out of sight just the same. All I wanted was a corner I could hide in, catch my breath, _try_ to stop from freezing to death…."

"Obviously you didn't," Hawke said, touching his shoulder. "But how?"

He ran a hand over his face. "I sat down - fell down, really - and was trying to call up what little magic I had when I heard the door open again. Someone was there after all. I was too weak to get up and run. I was almost too weak to lift my eyes."

Hawke held on tighter. "What happened?"

"I said to stay back. That I was a terrible, fearsome mage. And then…." He looked almost sheepish. "I passed out."

"Terrifying," Hawke said, and she wasn't entirely sure if she'd meant it as a tease or if she was still, even years later, afraid for him. Anything could have happened. Anders sighed and smiled faintly.

"I didn't know where I was when I woke up. Eventually I realized I was looking at a small hearth, that a fire had been lit for me, and I was laid out on a bed, wrapped up in a huge blanket…and I wasn't wearing anything underneath." His smile tilted sideways. Hawke, who'd noted the resemblance of that description to the bed they were lying in now, resisted the urge to dart a hand beneath the sheets to make sure _that_ part of the tale matched up, too. "The robes were hanging a few feet away, drip-drying over a pail. I stared at those for the longest time, wondering how they got there. Then I realized someone was watching me."

Hawke watched him in silent question while the firelight played over his face. Anders' expression turned a little distant, but the strange smile remained.

"I never got a name, before you ask," he said. "Not even a hint. I suppose that was for the best. Give away too much and you put everyone in danger, and she was… well…."

"She?"

Anders let out a low, warm laugh. "Jealous already?"

Hawke tried to brush that off. "I'm just curious."

"Well, then. Yes. _She_ was there. And if I'd known about her, I would have headed her way long before. Never seen anything like her. There was something a litlte strange - I bet there was elven blood in her somewhere… and she had a birthmark right here, on her cheek." He touched Hawke's face, tracing the outline. Hawke shivered. "She turned away the instant she caught me looking. I think she expected I'd find her ugly." He shook his head. "The way people judge…."

"Sympathy for the outcast, then," Hawke murmured. Anders glanced aside.

"Maybe," he said, his voice low. "Maybe we both felt that way, I don't know."

"So she helped you…."

Hawke wasn't sure what to expect: if the mystery woman would merely warm him up and feed him and send him on his way, or if she'd play turncoat and fetch the templars, or if something… else… might happen, but Anders said, "I told her she should run, to be honest. That she shouldn't have anything to do with me. She wouldn't have any of that. She said as long as I was there with her… I'd be safe. And I believed her. That voice… it was music. Everything she said, I believed."

"All right," Hawke murmured. "Now I think I am getting jealous."

Anders looked down at her. Slowly he touched her face again, his fingers warm; magic tingled at his fingertips. "I was still so cold," he murmured, "and my magic was coming back so slowly… she saw me shivering, and came to add another blanket. I…."

Hawke reached up and grasped his wrist, lightly pulling his hand down to her heart. His fingers curled, and that strange, wry smile touched his lips again. "Yes," he said. "That's almost exactly what I did."

"Did you lie with her?" Hawke whispered, although from the look in his eyes she already knew. The idea of it - Anders, young and cold and overwhelmed, reaching for this strange savior to find some warmth - made her tingle all over, a certain warmth of her own blooming deep down below. His voice when he answered her only stoked the flames; he was starting to tremble under the force of the memory.

"All healers know it," he said hoarsely. "Shared warmth, skin against skin… I _had_ to touch her. Everything inside me knew. And she didn't say a word, just undressed and slid in beside me. Held me. Started moving her hands…."

His own were starting to wander, making Hawke's breath catch.

"It seemed inevitable," he said softly. "I should have asked more questions - stopped to think - but when she touched me, my magic came to life again like it had never been drained. She wasn't frightened. Wasn't repulsed. Didn't judge. She just held me tighter. It felt so good I couldn't bear to stop."

He spread his still-captured hand against Hawke's chest, making warmth ebb from his palm into her body. When Hawke hitched one leg up, tugging him against her so he settled between her thighs, the heat redoubled.

"I never knew it was like that," he murmured. "Touching her. Entering her. All soft and wet and warm, _so_ warm, and feeling that around me-" He trembled again; Hawke felt his body press against her, hot and insistent.

"You can feel that again," Hawke said. "With me. Right now."

He slid against her, just enough to tantalize. His voice went ragged even as he teased her. "You haven't heard how the story ends, yet."

"I don't want to _hear_ it," she breathed. "Show me. Touch me like you touched her."

_And be like you were then,_ Hawke thought, while Anders shuddered and light flared around his fingertips. _Let me know who you were, so I can understand you now. Let me know what you were like before this spirit took you-_

And she thought she saw a look of regret cross his face, just for a moment, and she wondered why. Maybe it was the knowledge that he could never be that kind of innocent again - if he ever _was_ such a thing once he'd been sent to the Circle. She began to wonder if she'd gotten more of an answer about him than she'd bargained for. Or maybe she was just wishing that she could understand him that fully, because she'd never _really_ know, and it was harder to read his expression now that he'd closed his eyes -

But then he slid into her, almost tentatively, like he might well have on the first try; she gasped at the sensation and tried to draw him deeper. At first, he resisted. He was moving like he wanted to feel everything bit by bit, slowly sliding his hands beneath the nightgown she still wore, pushing forward so achingly slowly as he explored her skin and tasted her increasingly urgent kisses. He was trembling all over. She wanted more, wanted _all_ of him, but the pleas forming on her lips died when Anders opened his eyes again, staring straight into hers. Something deep and powerful was burning there. Something primal. Uncontrolled.

Instead of what she'd meant to say, she went with instinct and whispered, "Let go."

Anders moaned and surged forward, and all the magic he'd been holding back poured into her at once.

Hawke cried out, her whole body arching under the onslaught. The air crackled - she could nearly _taste_ it, the incomprehensible energy whirling in her vision and ringing in her ears - and her suddenly-oversensitive skin felt _everything_ as he thrust into her, kissed her with desperate intensity, moved faster and faster within her. Every nerve was painfully, deliciously alive. He'd never felt this good inside her, and they'd done this any number of ways - in this bed, slamming him up against the wall, down on her hands and knees and-

"Hawke," he gasped, breaking apart what few scattered thoughts were left. "Hawke, hang on."

She couldn't do much else. He'd taken her at her word, and let go of almost all control. She just held her breath and rode out the waves. When he slammed into her at the last, his power fairly exploded into her, so intense she couldn't tell up from down or even breathe properly and she felt _everything_ inside her burn with pleasure, her muscles clenching around him and her whole body shaking. And Anders was throwing his head back, mouth open in a silent shout, light flaring so bright around him that he looked like a living flame.

She had just enough time to feel terrified and exhilarated all at once, and to wonder how this strange girl who'd saved him had _ever_ let him go, before a second, ecstatic blast of sensation hit her and she stopped thinking at all for a long while.

They lay together in a tangled heap afterward, breathing hard and still touching each other with lingering wonder, even through the exhaustion. Hawke distantly realized that there were papers fluttering around the room, blown off a nearby table, and that something smelled scorched; the bedcurtains were still swaying and they'd rumpled the sheets to absolute bits. A vase had broken and spilled its contents over the floor. Even the windows had been shoved open from the change in pressure, and Hawke wondered just how much had been audible down on the street below. But then Anders moved, and she stopped bothering to worry about it. He had one hand on her beneath the nightgown and the other resting atop it, stroking her overstimulated skin through the silk. She moaned softly at the feeling and turned to him for another kiss, smelling his sweat and tasting it on his mouth when their lips met. He was starting to whisper to her again between touches.

"That's what it was like with her," he said. "Because that's what it's like when I don't hold back. Almost."

She blinked at him. For a while Anders just bent his head and watched the path of his hands as he touched her. Slowly, Hawke realized he was casting magic again: healing spells that sank into bruises and burns she didn't even realize she had. She hissed in a breath of mingled pleasure and pain as one of them mended with an unexpected flash, and it was then that Anders spoke again.

"I can't ever let go completely," he said. "No mage dares."

Hawke shivered. That much power, let loose in such a way… she couldn't even begin to think of what it might be capable of. But no small part of her wanted to feel it again. She took a shallow, shaky breath, letting herself - _making_ herself - feel what he was doing to her, mending the damage. If she could have, she'd have resisted just a little of it so she'd have something left behind to remember. She _needed_ to remember. But there was also one thing more she needed to know, first.

"Anders," she said softly, while his fingers drifted down to her legs. "Whatever became of her?"

He lifted his head. "Of who?"

"The woman who saved you. What happened to her?"

Anders fell silent a while. He healed one more bruise, then tugged her nightgown down and reached up to smooth back her hair. Hawke stayed very still, waiting for him.

"When I woke up, she was gone," Anders said at last. "_Everything_ was gone. The fireplace was empty, the pail under my robes was missing, the whole room looked like no one had been in it in weeks. Dust covered everything. Even my blanket was gone. It was like she'd never existed."

Hawke tensed. "More magic?"

"I still don't know. I suppose it must have been. But she was exactly right - as long as I was with her, I was safe. Once she was gone… I heard the templars coming up the hill. Had to grab my robes and go back to running for my life." He almost smiled, then paused to stroke back one last strand of hair from Hawke's forehead. "But I'll always remember what she said before she disappeared."

Hawke didn't ask. She simply waited, still touching him, wondering what he might say. Anders brushed her lips with his thumb and answered, "She said someday I'd have to learn when the time was to stop running."

Hawke's voice was very quiet. "And have you found it?"

Anders didn't say anything. Instead he kissed her, soft and slow, and held her close when she curled up with her head on his chest. His heartbeat beneath still raced.

And in the room around them, where - despite his promises - pages of his manifesto were scattered everywhere in sight, the last traces of his spell ebbed off beyond her perception, escaping out the open window and vanishing into the unseen sky.


End file.
